The present invention relates to a system and method for data collection, evaluation, information generation, and presentation. More particularly the present invention relates to a system for collecting, evaluating, and presenting data, and generating information relating to electronic commerce. The system and methods of the present invention include one or more of the following: a module for stabilizing small or noisy samples of data; alarm modules that alert an event handler when data values cross specified thresholds; predictor modules that use recent historical data along with an estimated and/or available saturation population function as the basis for a differential equation that defines the growth of the population to a maximum attainable level; and a dynamic icon that conveys to users of a system levels of predefined activity occurring on the system.
The availability of relatively low cost, powerful computer systems and the development of online communication systems and networks—principally the Internet and its protocols, and the availability of low-cost consumer computer systems—have fueled the growth of e-commerce. As used herein “e-commerce” means commercial transactions for goods or services, particularly wholesale or retail sales of products or services, or bartered exchange of the foregoing, over global computer networks, such as the Internet, or any smaller computer network that unites users and suppliers of goods or services.
The rapid growth of e-commerce makes the need for such guidance even more compelling. In a study by the assignee of the present invention, it was found that over the 12-month period ending June 1999, total retail e-commerce sales tripled from $2.67 to $7.94 billion. (Source: 2ND QTR: 1999 Consumer Online Report for Total Retail e-commerce, published by BizRate.com, 1999).
The Internet has been swiftly facilitating the growth of local and regional markets into national and international markets. This market expansion provides consumers with many new advantages and opportunities including better product pricing, product selection, product quality, and customer service. The market expansion also creates new advantages and opportunities for businesses, including a broader base of consumers and suppliers. With the advantages and opportunities come new challenges.
The success of a business engaged in e-commerce may depend on how well it understands the dynamics and parameters of the e-commerce marketplace, and how well the business understands its status in such marketplace. Unfortunately, traditional models for evaluating the performance of a business are not well suited or optimized for evaluating the performances of businesses engaged in e-commerce. The nature of e-commerce and the manner in which it is conducted demand new and improved systems and methods for evaluating business performance. Consumers also need guidance so that they may understand their options and make the best decisions when doing business online.
From the consumer perspective, chief among the challenges is finding among the myriad of online businesses the merchants who offer the category of products sought at the best pricing, product selection, product quality, reputation, etc. The rating of a merchant relative to such variables may change rapidly in response to marketplace conditions. For example, marketplace competition may drive competitors to change their prices daily. Product availability may also change on as frequent a basis. For such reasons, consumers need a mechanism that helps them quickly locate the best merchants for their needs based on the most current and accurate data and information available.
Merchants also face new challenges in the online marketplace. They must be able to reach consumers and communicate to consumers the value they can deliver. To do this, they must understand the competition, and what drives consumers to make purchases. They must monitor their own prices relative to competitors' prices on a frequent basis to remain competitive. They must also understand what level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction consumers have from transactions with themselves and competitors, as well as the bases of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. For such reasons, merchants need a mechanism that helps them quickly obtain the most current and accurate information.
Traditionally, marketing surveys have been employed to determine how well a business rates in the eyes of consumers. Direct feedback from consumers provides important information. In traditional forms of commerce, consumer satisfaction surveys have been long used to gather direct feedback from consumers. (Traditional forms of commerce include in-store, telephonic, and mail order commerce.) The surveys help businesses understand what positive and negative things they are doing. With the proper understanding, the businesses may reinforce the positive things and correct the negative ones. The more accurate and current the survey results, the better a business can achieve its objectives.
Unfortunately, administering and processing consumer surveys, even in traditional modes of commerce, has been problematic in various respects, for example:                How do you get consumers to fill out such surveys?        Is the sample size of responses large enough to produce accurate reports?        How do you input and process the data?        Has the data been processed in a timely manner?        How are results to be timely reported to businesses?        What do the results mean to the business?        What steps should the business take in view of the results?        What has been the effect of any remedial action?        
With respect to these questions, there are many problems. The surveys are typically presented to consumers as paper questionnaires for the consumers to manually fill in. Such surveys may be costly to construct and print. Once printed, they cannot be modified. Consumers generally dislike filling out survey questionnaires, and therefore it may be difficult or time consuming for the survey sponsor to gather enough completed survey questionnaires to constitute a statistically significant sample size. Often, the completed survey questionnaires must be returned by mail; even if a consumer has filled out the survey questionnaire, the consumer may not take the trouble of dropping it in the mailbox.
To overcome these kinds of problems, survey sponsors sometimes employ individuals to field survey responses from individuals. These individuals may be stationed in a store to verbally field answers to survey questions or they may telephone consumers after a transaction. The problem with using individuals to administer surveys is the cost of administering the survey and the intrusiveness of the process. The intrusiveness is such that consumers may be alienated from doing further business with a merchant. This is particularly a concern relative to telephone surveys. With intrusive survey methods, even if the consumer is inclined to answer questions by a survey taker, the consumer's answers may be skewed toward an unfavorable response, creating inaccurate results.
The processing of completed survey questionnaires has its own set of disadvantages. The completed survey questionnaires usually must be read by data entry personnel and manually input by them into a data processing system. This not only adds to the cost of administering a survey, but it also results in delays between the time surveys are taken and the time the results are processed.
In view of the inherent delays in administering surveys and inputting survey data, by the time a business receives a report of the results of a survey, the results may no longer be accurate. For example, consider a survey about price competitiveness: competitors may have dropped prices in the interval between the responses to a survey and the processing and reporting of information. During such an interval, a business could lose significant sales and revenues because they have not reacted contemporaneously to competitors' price changes. If there is a decline in consumer service ratings that is not corrected quickly because of the interval between survey responses and reporting of results, a business may also lose consumer goodwill, and consequently sales and revenues.
Another problem with traditional survey modes is that a business may have difficulty benefiting from the survey results. One reason is that, although a business can take remedial action in view of the results, to monitor the results of any remedial action requires a subsequent survey. There is a disincentive for a subsequent survey because of all the aforementioned disadvantages related to traditional modes of surveying such as cost, time required, etc. However, if the problems inherent in traditional forms of surveying could be overcome, subsequent surveys could be undertaken to determine the effectiveness of remedial action dictated by the initial survey.
In view of the disadvantages in traditional survey methodology, a few years ago the assignee of the present invention developed and implemented a novel system for providing timely and accurate reporting of information relating to the sales, marketing, consumer satisfaction, and other commercial activities of participating businesses. In the system, online buyers are non-intrusively invited to fill out a survey questionnaire immediately after completing a purchase at a participating merchant. The invitation is in the form of a banner on the order confirmation receipt from a participating merchant's website. If the buyer has clicked on the banner to accept the survey questionnaire, the buyer is hyper-linked to a questionnaire from a survey system server. The buyer completes the survey questionnaire and the survey data are electronically returned to a data processing system for processing and evaluating survey results. The same system can electronically report the processed results from a sample of survey questionnaires directly to participating or subscribing merchants.
Thus, the system of the assignee overcomes disadvantages in the art by providing a system that electronically gathers data and transmits it directly into the data processing system. Among the advantages of this system, it eliminates the need for manual entry of data on paper forms; the use of individuals to take and input survey data gathered from consumers; the delays that occur between data collection and input, and data input and processing; and the costs associated with such methodologies. While this system has begun to address many disadvantages of traditional modes of surveying, processing, and evaluating survey data, the dynamics of the e-commerce marketplace demand faster and more accurate data gathering, processing, evaluation and reporting of data and information.
The rate at which reports can be issued depends on how fast survey responses are returned and on the minimum sample size required. It is fundamental in statistical sciences that, when conventional modes of statistical analysis are employed, an inadequately small sample or a noisy sample will lead to inaccurate results. However, business and marketplace conditions may be changing faster than adequate sample sizes can be gathered for accurate results using conventional modes of statistical analysis and estimation theory. Such conventional modes include “moving window averages” (weighted and unweighted). Accordingly, businesses may be at risk if certain trends relating to the business or marketplace take shape before data is collected in sample sizes suitable for traditional modes of statistical analysis and estimation.
In view of the foregoing, there is a strong need for novel data processing systems that can discern trends and otherwise provide results based on limited or noisy data samples. Further in view of the foregoing, there is a substantial need for data gathering, processing and evaluation systems that quickly alert businesses to incipient trends in their business activities and marketplace so that appropriate action may be taken to protect and advance a business's well-being. There is also a need for systems that allow a business to predict growth rates and limits of variables relating to the business or marketplace.